The Color of Death (37 page)

It took me a moment to grasp fully what she had said. “Oh, Annie, can you mean it? Is it true?”

And then, with help from Clarissa in the form of interruptions, reminders, and comments, Annie began her story. She had taken herself in hand the evening of the dinner at which Mr. Johnson and Mr. Burnham were present. She lay awake that night lecturing herself regarding Mr. Burnham. Had he led her on? No, he had held himself within the limits proper to a teacher and his student. Had she then deceived herself? Yes, indeed she had, just as she had done early on with Tom Durham, Lady Katherine’s son. She was embarrassed, ashamed, and humiliated even to think upon the circumstances which had brought her to this state.

But then did she take heart, remembering the joy of her first night at the theater — and the promise she had made to herself and to David Garrick. She had given it all up for some daft child’s dream of eternal love with Mr. Burnham. Why, you would think that she had been inspired in it by one of Clarissa’s romances! Annie cursed herself for having put aside her ambition so cheaply. But then did she recall that Mr. Burnham had called to her attention a notice upon the door of the Drury Lane Theatre to the effect that Mr. Garrick would audition candidates for the Drury Lane apprenticeships by appointment during this month. And below this a warning: “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Mr. Burnham assured her that she was ready and would be chosen. By that time, she was indifferent to all but him, and promptly put thoughts of Drury Lane and David Garrick out of her mind. But now they were back.

Next morning, she went off to the theater to ask for an appointment and was promptly brought into the presence of Mr. Garrick himself. He had looked her up and down and said, “There is no time like the present.” And with that, he brought her up to the empty stage of the deserted theater.

“Have you prepared something?” he asked her.

She nodded, and he retired to a chair placed in the wings. He gave her a wave, signaling she might begin.

Annie knew a good deal of Shakespeare by heart, and there was no question in her mind but that Ophelia’s soliloquy from Act Three of Hamlet (which begins, “O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!”) was the one that was best for her. She did not recite it, she acted it with gestures and a bit of movement, ignoring Mr. Garrick and playing to the empty, darkened theater.

When she had done, she turned and found him close by, staring at her quite intently. He asked if she knew the song in Act Four. When she said that she did, he told her to sing it. That she did, putting it to a tune she had adapted from “Lord Randall,” to which it fitted quite well. Once through it, he asked her to sing it again, which she did to his satisfaction. He then asked her to walk across the stage and return to him, which she did, pleasing him less. He told her that she needed to work on movement, but then he went on to inform her of the terms of the apprenticeship, which were made to sound quite harsh, though they did not seem so to Annie. He asked her for her full name and told her that papers would be drawn up immediately and she was to come in next day to sign them.

“Does that mean … ?”

“That means that you will be a lowly apprentice, nothing more — but nevertheless, a member of our company.”

The story that Annie told set Clarissa and I burbling once again with excitement. It seemed near impossible that she had triumphed so signally over circumstance and chance, and over herself — but she had. And there were none more happy for her than we two, unless it be Sir John and Lady Katherine, who joined us in little more than an hour. They found a grand celebratory meal prepared for them by Annie and Clarissa. Sir John called for a bottle of claret, and toasts were drunk that Annie might prosper in her new career. (And as you may know, reader, she did.) It was a most happy occasion, yet at the same time a sad one, for it was the last time we five gathered together there at Number 4 Bow Street, and I believe that we all had some presentiment of that.

It was a number of days before I was able to make more than fleeting contact with Constable Will Patley. Mr. Bailey had taken him under his charge and was teaching him all that could be known about being a Bow Street Runner. Patley was well-liked by Mr. Bailey and the other constables. The only area in which his performance was in any way disappointing continued to be his written reports. And at last, I was called in, as I knew I would be eventually, to help him with those. He learned quickly enough, but he had little knowledge of English orthography and usage to build upon. As for orthography, I secured enough from Mr. Marsden from our ready-cash fund to purchase Samuel Johnson’s dictionary and for usage, a copy of Robinson Crusoe, both well-worn but readable. These I presented to him with a bit of pomp and ceremony, telling him that I had never heard of the man who could read through Defoe’s greatest work and remain indifferent to it. It was a grand story, said I, and it was also written so well that if he read it through, it could not but improve his manner of writing. And the dictionary would provide meaning and the correct spelling of every word of Defoe’s that gave him the slightest bit of trouble. He took all this with equanimity, saying little of anything that could be interpreted as a promise that he would read the one and use the other to help him to do it.

Therefore was I somewhat surprised when, after a week or so had passed by, he engaged me in a conversation which, if not about the book directly, was at least more or less inspired by it.

“You know,” said he, “I been readin’ that book you gave me, and I will say it ain’t dull. But it put me in mind of my time on the island.”

“What island?” I asked, having heard nothing of this before. “Were you shipwrecked, as he was?”

“Oh no, nothin’ like that, though I come to feel like I was marooned there for fair. The island was Jamaica. And they had our regiment there — that’s the King’s Carabineers, otherwise known as the Sixth Dragoon Guards — to keep order generally and to put down any rebellion amongst the slaves, should one arise.”

“So you were in the Carabineers, were you? That’s how you and Lieutenant Tabor came to be on such familiar terms.”

“Familiar maybe, but not friendly,” said he. “But indeed we was there for three years, and I don’t mind tellin’ you that they was the worst three years of my life. They put me in such a state, I wanted out of the regiment soon as I come back.”

Much was coming clear; the more he told, the more I wished to know. “What affected you so deeply, Mr. Patley? “

“You mean what stuck in my craw so bad about the place? Well, it wasn’t the look of it. It fair took your breath away, some parts were so pretty. That was what was so strange — seeing that kind of cruelty where everything was flowers and green and the sky so blue you’d swear it couldn’t be the same one as is up above us here.”

He hesitated then for a good long moment, but I had the sense that he would continue, so I said nothing. With a sharp glance at me then, as if assessing my capacity as a listener, he resumed his tale.

“It was the slaves,” said he, “the way they was treated — just like animals. Or worse, really, ‘cause the planters treated their cattle and horses better. I couldn’t quite believe it when first we come. They told me I’d get used to it — but I never did. It only got worse. The last year was worst of all.”

“Why was that?” I asked.

“Well, there was a lot of what they called ‘unrest’ there amongst the slaves then — which was just last year, come to think of it, though it seems much longer ago than that. Anyways, things was specially bad at three of the plantations, so the colonel let himself get talked into putting a platoon at each of them — just living right there on the plantations. As it happened, Tabor was our platoon commander. Now, neither the planter, or his family, or the overseer and his family, none of the whites who ran the place, would have anything to do with us troopers — only with Tabor. So we had nobody to talk to except ourselves or the slaves. We got pretty close to them that way. And we saw that the reason why this plantation had more ‘unrest’ than the others was because the slaves there got treated worse. Any fool could see that.

“So, like I said, we got pretty close to them, and we were even what you might call friendly You might not realize it — or maybe you would, working for the magistrate and all — but not all the slaves was black Africans. A number were white Englishmen, just like you and me, who was convicted and given transportation, instead of the rope. Glad they were to get it at the time, but afterwards, I just wonder if they were. There were more of them on this partic’lar plantation than on most, but they didn’t get treated any better than the Africans — if anything, they got treated worse. Anyways, I got pretty thick with one of them, called himself Johnny Skylark. He was a Londoner and a thief — he made no bones about that — but a very entertaining fellow, he was. I asked him how he managed to keep his spirits up in this awful place. And he said that he was going to escape some day. He was sure of it, and it was knowing that kept him going. I remember I told him then that if he was going to do a scarper, then he’d better do it after I’d left, ‘cause I didn’t want to be the one brought him back. He just sort of smiled at that and nodded, and we let it go. Or I did, anyways.

“So it wasn’t long, o’course, before he made his run for it, and he weren’t alone. He took all the healthiest blacks and a few whites who was working in the south field right along with him when he did. There were four troopers riding inspection through the coffee plants. One of them saw the other three get pulled off their horses, and he turned round and rode like the devil was after him for the rest of the platoon. The slaves, all of them, might have made it to the mountains where the maroons hid themselves, if he hadn’t made it back and put the lieutenant on notice what was happening. As it was, we rounded up most of them, but not all. The leaders were all up front, and just us few — the lieutenant, me, and maybe six more. I’m out in front because I was the best tracker in the platoon. Tabor was right behind me, though. We come upon them on an uphill. They was right close to the crest. We had a good look at them, and they wasn’t so far away, so Tabor yells to me that I should stop and take the shot at one of them. So I had no choice. I reins in, dismounts, pulls the carabin out of the saddle scabbard, and made ready to fire from a kneel. The lieutenant was down off his horse, and the rest of the troopers was pulling up — lot of noise and confusion just then. I take aim at one of them on the hill, but Tabor’s right behind me, sighting up my barrel. And he yells at me, he said, ‘No, get the white man. He’s the leader. They’ll all turn back if you get him.’ He meant Johnny Skylark, of course, so I took aim at him. It wasn’t really a hard shot, but he was pretty close to the top of the hill, so I’d only have the one chance at him — but after all, I was regimental champion, the king of the sharpshooters, weren’t I?

“So I aimed, I shot, and I missed. The lieutenant called for a volley from the rest of the troopers, and they let go on command. Two or three of the blacks dropped, but two or three more, as well as Johnny, made it over the hill and down into the bush where our horses couldn’t go, and our carabins wouldn’t do us no good. I lost their tracks, anyways. The lieutenant claimed I’d missed Johnny on purpose, brought me up on charges before the colonel. I just denied and denied and denied. ‘Course it didn’t help that Johnny turned and waved just before he disappeared. He knew it was me shot at him and missed. Still, there was so much going on behind me — -the lieutenant yelling in my ear, the troopers reining up and dismounting — that who could say that I hadn’t missed fair and square?”

“And did you?” I put in quickly.

“No, I missed on purpose. The lieutenant was right. But the colonel said it was impossible to court-martial a man for missing a target, else three-quarters of the regiment would be up for it. So I would be permitted to resign as soon as we were back in Britain.”

“Well, that’s … that’s quite a story,” said I.

“Wait, I ain’t done yet,” said he, catching a deep breath or two. “Anyways, I resigned. Ben Bailey and Sir John took me on here, and I wasn’t working this job more than a month when the Lord Lilley house was robbed, and about two days after that, who should I run into drinking away on Bedford Street but Johnny Skylark, who now wants to be known as John Abernathy, which he swears is his rightful name. I can’t say as I was surprised to see him. First of all, he was a Londoner, and a thief must know a city well to work in it proper. And there was this about that raid on the Lilley house. It was exactly like the ones he and his crew carried out some years before when he was caught and given transportation for the term of his natural life.”

“Except for one thing,” said I. “There was a man murdered.”

“So there was, and I’ll talk about that in just a bit. So, as I say, I wasn’t so surprised when I met him right there. I was surprised, though, that he knew so much about what had happened to me — that I’d been more or less drummed out of the regiment, and that I was now a constable with the Bow Street Runners — but he did. He as good as admitted that it was him and four of his chums, including one from the Burnham plantation, who did the robbery at Lord Lilley’s. And he wound up asking me if I had a good place to dorse. ‘Why don’t you come live with us in the Dutchman’s castle?’ he asked me, and I told him I’d have to think about that, might get in the way of my work as a constable. But he said no. ‘The two might go right well together. Meet me here tomorrow.’

“So I went to Sir John with it, and he said that I ought to go and be his spy. That didn’t appeal to me much until he reminded me of the porter who’d been shot dead without a plea.”

“And he, himself, was wounded that night in St. James Street,” said I. “It must have been Abernathy.”

“Oh, it was,” said Constable Patley. “You damn near scared him to death shootin’ back. He didn’t expect that. And then there was the three troopers who was pulled off their horses. I knew all those boys. I should have. They was in my platoon. They got their throats cut. If it wasn’t him did it, it was him ordered it. So you can see, I didn’t have much of an argument with myself on this question of spying for the law. The funny thing was, Johnny never had a doubt I was with him, because I’d had a shot at him and missed out of friendship back there in Jamaica. He even explained away the murder of the porter at Lord Lilley’s. He told me that just by luck that fella turned out to be one of his old robbery gang, the one who bore witness against him and sent him off to Jamaica. Just settling old scores, he said. For some reason, it was important to him that I think well of him.